Russia claims Hezbollah pager explosions were designed to ‘provoke a major war’

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that the attack on Hezbollah members in Lebanon using explosive pagers was deliberately intended to “provoke a major war in the Middle East.”

The pagers exploded simultaneously on Tuesday in Lebanon killing at least nine people and injuring nearly 3,000, according to Lebanese authorities, including Iran’s envoy to Beirut. Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party, accused Israel of being responsible.

“We regard what happened as yet another act of hybrid warfare against Lebanon, which has harmed thousands of innocent people. It appears that the organizers of this high-tech attack deliberately sought to foment a large-scale armed confrontation in order to provoke a major war in the Middle East,” Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for Russia’s Foreign Ministry, wrote in a statement.

On Wednesday, the manufacturing company of the pagers, Taiwan’s Gold Apollo, said that the exploding pagers were actually manufactured in Hungary.

Moscow on Wednesday said that Russian specialists will investigate the causes of the incident to guard against similar attacks.

“An absolutely thorough investigation of this incident must be carried out. The causes of the incident, the circumstances must be established,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said during a press briefing.

“After that, of course, this should become the subject of study by specialists in order to take measures to eliminate such risks in our country and in other places,” he added.